Strohmeyer Asks Judge to Grant a Trial

Jeremy Strohmeyer told a judge Tuesday that he was bullied by his defense attorney into pleading guilty in 1997 to the rape and murder of 7-year-old Sherrice Iverson in a casino restroom, and that he now wants to stand trial for the murder.

Strohmeyer, now 21, testified that his attorney, Leslie Abramson, gave him little hope that he could emerge from trial with punishment lighter than 75 years in prison without the possibility of parole, and that he stood a great risk of being executed for the May 1997 Primm, Nev., slaying.

Tuesday’s hearing, at which Abramson flatly denied coercing her client into pleading guilty, will continue this morning before District Judge Joseph Bonaventure. The judge indicated that he will probably issue a ruling today.

Strohmeyer previously confessed to killing Sherrice after playing cat-and-mouse with her in the former Primadonna Resort & Casino’s unsupervised arcade game room and then following her into a bathroom. Key prosecution evidence included a surveillance tape showing the girl entering the bathroom, followed by Strohmeyer. He is shown leaving 25 minutes later; afterward, Sherrice’s body was found in a toilet stall.

“I was told it was a hopeless case, that I was going to die, and that I should own up to it anyway because I was guilty, and that I should go to prison to purge myself,” the former Long Beach high school student said.

Strohmeyer’s recollection of the events stood in stark contrast to the testimony of Abramson, who spent 90 minutes on the witness stand recalling trial strategies and research into the tendency of Nevada judicial panels to order execution--as their state law allows--when a jury is divided on whether a convicted defendant should be executed or sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Abramson, who appeared impatient with Strohmeyer’s new attorneys, flatly denied that she had pushed her former client into pleading guilty--a plea bargain under which he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“He indicated he had no choice--that he should take [the offer], that it was better to be alive,” Abramson said.

Clark County Dist. Atty. Stewart L. Bell, who prosecuted Strohmeyer before the case quickly came to a finale in September 1998, found himself Tuesday treating Abramson as a friendly witness--a far cry from the court battles they had previously fought.

Bell asked Abramson if she had encouraged Strohmeyer to plead guilty so she would not have to spend any more time on the case.

“You mean, take the money and run?” asked Abramson, who was paid $250,000 by Strohmeyer’s parents to defend him. “You could say that would be immoral, and I certainly wouldn’t do that to Jeremy.”

The Los Angeles defense attorney said she and her Nevada co-counsel, Richard Wright, had explained to their client that even if Strohmeyer could somehow beat the murder conviction, the kidnapping and sexual assault charges seemed irrefutable.

She said that she and Wright explained the sentencing options to Strohmeyer and that she was prepared to go to trial. “I don’t like pleading people to very, very long terms in prison,” Abramson said. “I have an aversion to that.”

Also testifying in court Tuesday was Strohmeyer’s mother, Winifred, who said that as the trial approached, Abramson told her the defendant would probably be convicted but that by hiring additional lawyers, she could mount the strongest possible appeal.

That would cost more money, Winifred Strohmeyer said she was told. “And we were pretty much out of money,” she added.

The very next day, the inmate’s mother said, Abramson notified her by telephone that her son had agreed to plead guilty. The attorney, she said, was quite descriptive about the death penalty: “She said there was no way we wanted Jeremy to be strapped to a gurney like an animal.”

One of the most dramatic portions of Tuesday’s hearing came when Deputy Dist. Atty. Bill Koot played the 50-minute audiotaped confession Strohmeyer gave to Long Beach and Las Vegas homicide detectives four days after the murder. Strohmeyer, who testified that he had never heard the entire tape before, rested his chin on his right hand as he listened intently.

He acknowledged having made the statements.

Later, Koot asked as he concluded his questioning, “Given all of this testimony, all of this damaging evidence against you, maybe you can tell the court what you want?”

Strohmeyer responded, “I want truth. I want justice. I don’t recall what happened that night.”

Looking toward the judge, he continued, “Your Honor, I’m here because I want to find out the truth. Justice has not been served.”

The all-day hearing also focused on Strohmeyer’s wavering thoughts about spending life in prison.

Soon after his arrest, he testified, “I thought that [life in prison] was far worse than dying.” His lawyer, he continued, “told me I was immature, that it was far better to live within the confines of prison than to be executed.”

His relationship with Abramson was “strange,” Strohmeyer said. “I was 18; she treated me like a child, basically. . . . Any input I wanted to give wasn’t valuable. She raised her voice, overpowered me. I learned pretty quick that to give any input would raise her ire.”

Later, as key trial motions were resolved in favor of the prosecution--including the admission into evidence of computer data linking Strohmeyer to child pornography--his opposition to spending life in prison softened, he said Tuesday.

Ultimately, he testified, he agreed with Abramson that standing trial would have put both his own family and that of the victim through terrible pain.

“She made me feel pretty horrible,” he said.

The final decision to plead guilty came after a meeting with his parents, sister and attorneys, he said. “At the end of the meeting, I made the decision to take the plea,” he said. “My dad told me, ‘We want you alive.’ ”

An in-depth story on Jeremy Strohmeyer and the murder of Sherrice Iverson is on The Times’ Web site: https://www.latimes.com/jeremy.